The Memory Keeper

Chapter 13

It had taken a lot longer than an hour to get to Willow Haven, but that was perfectly okay with Natalie. She and Peter ran to the fork, her skirt hem flapping as she spun around the sign post. Peter caught her around the waist and she shrieked as he spun her.

When her feet touched the ground again, she found her back to the post, Peter's hand braced on the top of the sign to Willow Haven, his other on her waist. They looked into each other's faces like they were maps. Without thinking, she moved her hand to his, over her hip, and suddenly could not see him anymore. The willow trees and speckled blue sky disappeared like running paint, a new picture constructing itself before their very eyes.

Swan Glade unfolded like a map made of crystal waters. A wooden craft boat floated in the middle, hardly causing a ripple. The pedals were not being used by the young couple in the boat, Peter and his love. He touched her cheek softly while telling a story, and she burst into laughter. He shushed her affectionately and continued. He wore no hat, and his wheat colored hair was a little longer, pushed back behind his ears. The young woman wore a red coat and a knitted hat, her back to Natalie, who stood behind a tree at the pond's edge.

Ducking further behind the evergreen trees, she concentrated on keeping the memory, and like before, the door opened and it all went flying into her like a tornado, every detail sharp, from the blue flowers Peter put in his love's hair, to the lady bug on Natalie's shoe.

It all left Peter's mind and flowed into Natalie's. Became hers again, so much that she felt the breeze off the water in her own hair, felt bubbling laughter in her own chest, Peter's hand on her own cheek.

When she opened her eyes, Peter was kissing her.

***

He stepped away. "Sorry."

She stared, unable to breathe, and Peter must have mistaken it as disappointment, that he would kiss her like that without asking, kiss her at all. He looked away, scratching the back of his head, and blinked back at her, an embarrassed smile on his face. "I should not have assumed you felt the same way."

Was this it? Was she to admit that he was not wrong? That she felt the same way, thinking of him day in and day out? His hair, his eyes, his hands... Trying on Colette's famous clandestine smile, she said, "Perhaps I do. And perhaps I don't mind it if you do not ask." After she had said it, she realized it sounded very unladylike, and she felt her cheeks redden.

He smiled, and gently helped her back onto the road to Willow Haven. "Still," he said, "I was... kind of lost in the memory."

She wondered if he had meant to kiss her, then. "I understand," she whispered. "But you assumed I felt the same way. What did you mean by that, then?"

He laced his hands at the back of his head and looked into the distance. "That maybe your friend Piper was right, and none of this is fair to you."

Natalie lifted her chin. "I think I'll be the judge of that."

"That you will." He smiled, looking at her, and then asked in a completely different tone, "So, you don't plan to speak with a middle person today, do you?"

The mind weaver took a deep breath. "Quite a thing to do, I think..."

"I don't mean to pry, but what do you mean?"

She hesitated for only a second, and then told him about her parents, how they had passed away in Pemawick Cove's thrashing waves, and because there was something so comforting about Peter, like she could tell him anything and he would accept it without question, she also told him about the nightmares, about the capsules Piper made specifically for that reason, to stop them. "Still, when I stop taking the capsules," she whispered, "the nightmare comes back. And my mother holds something different in her hand every time. A letter. A flower. A picnic basket. In this last nightmare, she held a candle, and lit it even in the crazy winds."